Finding God in All Things: Reflections on the Possibility of Mission Implementation at a Jesuit University in the Area of Faculty Research

Abstract

In recent years, much progress has been made in explicating how the educational mission of a Jesuit university can be informed and guided by the specific Catholic and Jesuit identity of the university. In contrast, almost no progress has been made in academic mission implementation in the area of faculty research. This failure is due in part to the widespread conviction that such an implementation is incompatible with academic freedom and will harm the research enterprise. This article argues that exactly the opposite is true. Such implementation could liberate the research enterprise of the methodological and substantive restrictions imposed on it by the dominant secular research paradigm. It would free scientists to diversify their research methods, gain a much richer understanding of reality, and even find God